COLUMN ONE : Elbowing for a Piece of Space : The parking lot for satellites is getting jammed. So a shoving match has broken out between Tonga and Indonesia as nations and companies fight for choice spots in the communications network.

It is shaping up as a prizefight in which the prize is literally out of this world.

In one corner is an aging flyweight out of Indonesia called Palapa B1. In the other, a young bruiser called Gorizont 17 from the tiny kingdom of Tonga. The winner will claim a lucrative piece of a dwindling resource: open space in outer space.

The combatants are telecommunication satellites whose owners--private companies in Indonesia and Indiana--have stubbornly parked their “birds” in the same orbital slot 22,300 miles above New Guinea. Each is threatening to crank up the volume and drown out the other guy until he gives up and goes away.

The standoff grows from a harsh fact of modern technological society. There is only so much room for satellites in the prime band of space above the Equator called geosynchronous orbit. As the demand for worldwide communications grows, so does the competition for these uniquely useful satellite parking spots.

“Fears that the geosynchronous arc would fill up weren’t even considered” when the first telecommunications satellite was lofted into orbit 30 years ago, said Scott Chase, editor of the Maryland-based industry newsletter Via Satellite. “Now, suddenly, it is here.”

Strictly speaking, battles over the valuable spots in geosynchronous orbit are forbidden by international treaty. But the agency that administers the pact concedes that it has no way to enforce it--no earthbound sanctions, no interplanetary police, no orbiting tow trucks.

The treaty, supporters say, dates to a pre-entrepreneurial era when space seemed plentiful and conflicts were resolved amicably between government ministers. Now, they say, the rules have changed.

In the South Pacific standoff, companies have teamed up with national governments to claim a particularly valuable place in space--one capable of linking the booming East Asian telecommunications market with North America. In exchange for exercising their rights under international law, the governments share in the considerable profit that a good slot can bring.

“We are rapidly reaching saturation in key parts of the (geosynchronous) arc over Asia and the congestion will spread west and east from there,” said Timothy Logue, a space analyst for the Washington law firm Reid & Priest.

“The intensity with which we see disagreements over (this part of the arc) is a new phenomenon,” he added. But it may not seem new for long. “We are going to go through a stressful time, and we are just on the cusp of it now.”

The U.S. Space Command in Colorado says 695 satellites are in geosynchronous orbit, and dozens more are on order or are scheduled to be launched. But because satellites are usually separated by 2 degrees of arc to avoid crossing signals, the number of slots in the 360-degree geosynchronous arc nominally is limited to 180--and many of those are over open ocean, and thus useless for telecommunications satellites.

For years, this crowding was managed under an international treaty administered by a United Nations agency, the International Telecommunications Union. Satellites sharing a slot must operate on different frequencies or aim their antennas at different parts of the globe. This makes it easier for ground antennas to distinguish among satellites.

But as the conflict above Indonesia demonstrates, these old tricks may not be enough to accommodate everyone who wants to be in space.

Chase, Logue and others say the treaty was drawn up in another era, when only a handful of wealthy nations possessed satellite technology and the telecommunications industry was dominated by a handful of giant companies, most either owned or strictly regulated by governments.

Now, with deregulation spreading around the globe, aggressive entrepreneurs are jumping into the satellite business. These operators, who are forbidden to claim orbital slots, are shopping among smaller and poorer nations for a sovereign power willing to claim slots for their countries, then turn them over to private companies--for a share of the profit.

The practice began in earnest in 1988, when San Diego entrepreneur Matt C. Nilson persuaded the king of Tonga--a small, agrarian island nation of 180,000--to claim 16 choice geosynchronous slots over the Pacific.

Administrators at the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, a 126-nation cooperative with 19 satellites and plans for five more, challenged Tonga’s claim. Intelsat, as the cooperative is called, argued before the International Telecommunications Union that Tonga lacked the resources to use so many slots itself and was trying to reap a windfall by cornering the market.

The ITU eventually concluded that Tonga’s claim, after being voluntarily scaled back to six slots, was legal. Tonga got its slots and later added a seventh.

Some players in the satellite game praised the ITU decision as a righteous blow for small or underdeveloped nations, such as Tonga, which are technologically or economically unable to claim their share of the valuable slots.

Critics note that the practice grew less out of idealism than out of Nilson’s entrepreneurial zeal. By teaming up with Tonga, they say, he has threatened to turn an invaluable international resource into a market-driven commodity.

Although that may help a few developing nations in the short term, these critics contend, it will hurt many more over time by driving up the cost of satellite service just as newly developing countries come into position to start using it. Affluent countries, they say, already obtained most of their needed slots for free.

The tussle between Indonesia and Tonga, although dramatic because both nations have working satellites in the same slot, is not the only case of competing claims. Hong Kong and Thailand are arguing over three slots, while the United States and Malaysia wrestle over two others.

“This is a very valuable commodity,” Nilson said. “It’s like lakefront property. Once it is gone, there isn’t any left. You can’t enlarge the lake.”

The problem is not strictly lack of space. There is still plenty of room in low-Earth orbit, a shell a few thousand miles thick starting about 1,100 miles above Earth. One company, Motorola Mobile Communications Inc., intends to launch 66 satellites into low-Earth orbit by 1998 to provide cellular telephone and other mobile communications services around the globe.

The crunch comes in a relatively small but unique part of space, the geosynchronous arc 22,300 miles directly above the Equator. Because of gravity, satellites lined up along the Equator at that altitude--and only that altitude--orbit at the same speed Earth rotates.

By being in sync with the planet’s rotation, satellites in that orbit appear from the ground to be hovering motionless.

Dish antennas can easily find and follow these “stationary” satellites, making them ideal for such tasks as tracking weather fronts, performing scientific research--and enabling 24-hour-a-day phone, television and data communication services with a single spacecraft.

But because geosynchronous satellites fly so high, it is difficult for most ground-based antennas to distinguish one satellite from another unless they are separated by a certain amount of space. Thus the rule that 2 degrees of arc separate satellites serving the same part of Earth with the same frequencies.

The good news is that at geosynchronous altitude, those 2 degrees translate into about 900 miles, so even satellites in the same slot are unlikely to collide.

Orbital disputes have occurred in other areas, such as western Europe and the North Atlantic. But a senior executive at one major satellite company, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said those disputes were not as serious because fiber-optic cables have provided communication companies with an alternative to satellites.

But for reaching vast distances around the Pacific Rim, fiber optics is not an attractive option. Meanwhile, the region’s industrializing nations are realizing that telecommunications is critical to competing economically in the Information Age. In some archipelagoes such as Indonesia and the Philippines, satellites are seen as a way to build a sense of nationhood.

“Countries look at satellites the way they used to look at steel mills or national airlines, as a matter of national pride and national development,” said Richard Barber, executive director of the Pacific Telecommunications Council, a nonprofit industry group in Honolulu.

Adding to the surging interest in satellites is their ready availability. Off-the-shelf models from Hughes Aircraft Co. and other manufacturers make it relatively easy and affordable to own world-class hardware. Competition among the world’s idle defense contractors is shrinking the cost of launching satellites into orbit.

Also, many serviceable used satellites are on the market. These satellites usually were replaced at the end of their design lifetimes by newer models, but are still in place and have several years of life--and fuel for their navigational thrusters--left in them.

“No longer is this technology a secret,” Chase said. “No longer is it the exclusive property of just a few countries.”

Indeed, satellites are no longer the exclusive property of countries at all--nor of a few major corporations.

The standoff above 134 degrees east longitude officially is between Indonesia and Tonga. But Indonesia is representing a small, private company, Pasifik Satelit Nusantara of Kuala Lumpur. Meanwhile, Tonga is representing tiny Rimsat Ltd. of Fort Wayne, Ind.

Adi R. Adiwoso, Pasifik Satelit Nusantara’s chief executive, declined to discuss the dispute.

Jim Simon, Rimsat’s executive director, succinctly summarized his company’s view of the conflict: “Our position is they shouldn’t be there.”

Nilson said Indonesia’s action is purely a matter of piracy, hatched once his competitors learned that only a few unoccupied slots on the geosynchronous arc are still capable of connecting Asia to Hawaii, and thus to the North American network.

“The only people with slots in that area are China, Russia and Tonga,” he said. “So if you make a business decision on who you’re going to try to steamroller over, it’s pretty obvious you’re not going to try China or Russia. You are going to try Tonga.”

Nilson downplays his financial stake in the contested slots, suggesting that he may never recoup the money he has invested in Tongasat. It is hard to judge that assertion because Nilson and Simon declined to discuss details of their financial arrangement.

Nilson said Tongasat charges less than $2 million a year--for Rimsat and another company, Unicom Corp., to reserve each of five slots. In addition, he said, Tongasat will share in the revenue Rimsat and Unicom generate by selling satellite time on the open market.

Rimsat recently took control of the used, 10-year-old Gorizont 17 satellite from Russia and inched it from the Indian Ocean into the slot in question. Simon said he is soliciting customers to use its seven channels.

Simon said his company is ready to turn on its satellite “at any moment,” and is unconcerned about the Indonesian satellite, which has been in the same slot since last fall. If the Indonesians stay and continue to operate, he added, “there’s going to be an interruption of service” when his satellite starts transmitting.

The ITU is not intended or chartered to negotiate compromises among its 180 member nations. It registers frequencies and orbital positions on a first-come, first-served basis.

Nations seeking to claim a slot advertise their intent in the ITU’s Radio Communications Bureau Weekly Circular, which is read closely by other nations. Conflicts must be worked out before the ITU will register a new claim for an orbital slot.

“The regulations are based on mutual cooperation and goodwill,” said Gary Brooks, a Canadian who serves on the ITU’s five-member Radio Regulation Board, which resolves differing interpretations of the regulations.

When differences cannot be resolved, the ITU sides with the member nation that was first to publish its claim.

As a result, said a top executive for one established satellite operator, “everybody is trying to be first in the door because theoretically the first to apply has some considerable leverage when it comes to negotiating” with any nation seeking the same slot at a later date.

In the end, however, all parties agree that there is nothing stronger than international condemnation to prevent piqued or rogue satellite operators from parking in someone else’s spot and refusing to move.

“They don’t have orbital police; they don’t have frequency police,” Logue said. “I don’t know what they can do.”

That is why satellite operators around the world are watching what happens at 134 east longitude.

“If this isn’t resolved peacefully,” Nilson said, “I don’t know who will win in this orbital warfare. You’ll have piracy everywhere.”

Conflict in a Crowded Cosmos

Booming global demand for television, telephone, fax and computer communication is creating a cosmic traffic jam. With 695 satellites--including the 120 commercial communication “birds” shown here--sharing the geosynchronous arc, orbital slots are becoming scarce. Rival satellites are jousting for one slot, and many nations want to see how regulators resolve the problem.

Geosynchronous Orbit

Satellites placed in orbit 22,300 miles over the equator--in geosynchronous orbit--whiz through space at the same speed as the Earth rotates, letting each hover over a particular spot and making possible 24-hour-a-day communication services. Assigned orbital slots keep neighboring satellites from interfering with one another. Slots usually are 2 degrees--916 miles--wide, so satellites are unlikely to collide. But this limits the number of slots in the 360-degree arc to only 180.

Palapa B1: For years, Indonesia held this 10-year-old satellite, made by Hughes Aircraft Co. of El Segundo, as a spare. Last fall, it relieved its overworked system by using Palapa B1 in the empty orbital slot at 134 East longitude--a valuable place because it can link Asia to Hawaii.

Gorizont 17: Last May, American entrepreneurs bought this 4-year-old satellite from the cash-strapped Russian government. They intended to move it into the orbital slot at 134 East longitude, which had been claimed by the Kingdom of Tonga several years ago. Tonga would share in the profits.

What Next: Palapa B1 continues to transmit from the slot. Gorizont 17 is ready to transmit when its owners line up willing clients. If the two broadcast simultaneously, they will drown each other out because they operate on the same frequencies and serve the same area.

Source: Hughes Aircraft Co., The World Satellite Almanac, U.S. Space Command